The Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents (the “Convention”) facilitates the use of public documents abroad. The purpose of the Convention is to abolish the traditional requirement of legalisation, replacing the often long and costly legalisation process with the issuance of a single Apostille certificate by a Competent Authority[i] in the place where the document originates.
China officially acceded to the Hague Conference on Private International Law – Conférence de La Haye de droit international privé (HCCH) 1961 Apostille Convention on 8 March 2023, which comes into effect tomorrow, 7 November 2023. Changes under the Convention include:
For a slightly different take on the changes in China, please take a look at Chris Bailey's blog post on the same topic but with added polar bears!
Authors: Fan Liu and Landy Jiang
[i] Competent authorities for Apostille service of the member countries could be found at https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/authorities1/?cid=41
[ii] List of member countries to Apostille Convention could be found at https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/status-table/?cid=41